caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> en tuesday, the supreme court hears oral arguments on asylum requirements at the southern board as thee senators i have sd

with a good number of years.

they are all going to retire at the end of this session. they are not going to walk away with tens of millions of dollars. >> what are you talking [applause] thank you for the kind enter ducks. i just want to point out the obvious here. these are four of my former senators i served with for a number of years. they're all going to retire at the end of this session. and they're not going to walk away with tens of millions of dollars in their pockets like some people. >> what are you talk ing about? ts but also understant u.s. senators stands for something. it is good to have you all here today. thank you for being here. i am going to throw out some stuff. you guys can jump on it in no particular order. i have to really watch myself. i believe c-span is recording this. we will try to keep it fit for women and children. first of all, before we get into

the really good stuff, you guys are going to retire out of the senate. so, what are you going to do? go ahead, you first. >> i am not really sure. and i love that. i have been doing public service for over 20 years. i am sure i will find new ways of making trouble when i am done with this job. i am looking forward to having some open space. a little bit like you felt when you were leaving, except you thought you knew what you were going to do. when you knew you were going to be home, it is like, let's see what happens. >> cool. >> michael has a plan. >> i said after jon tester lost the last cycle, i cannot stay here without

i did say that. i wasn't making that up. i said that. i decided to run for governor of colorado because i could not bear being in the senate without jon tester but i feel very strongly this is a moment where the real fight is going to be at the states and in colorado, we have a fight because people your age in my state believe that they will never be able to afford to live in colorado. they will never be able to afford housing or health care or childcare. there is a profound affordability crisis and i believe it's a nationwide problem and i think it's one of the reasons why donald trump has been elected twice president of the united states. we got to find a way to address it so that is what i'm doing. >> cool. >> well, notwithstanding the affordability crisis which i believe is really true and i have heard that from my constituents, but we also have a

real challenge in terms of our foreign policy and the role of the united states and the world. this year, i took over the session of congress, i took over as ranking member of the foreign relations committee in the senate and i am very troubled by the policies that this administration has pursued, whether it's the war in iran, the threat to go into cuba, taking no venezuela. don't get me wrong, i'm not sorry about taking nicolas maduro and having him stand trial but i do think there are unintended consequences and i don't hear anybody in the administration talking about the need for democratic elections and what needs to support the people in these countries. and that's very troubling. the fact that we have turned our backs on ukraine when russia presents a real threat. so i'm hoping when i leave the senate, and i will have served in public office for 30 years at

the end of my term, that i will continue to be involved in foreign policy in some way. >> ok. georgetown alumni dick durbin. [applause] >> yes. >> second semester of my senior year, my roommate of chicago, illinois, goes by the student employment service and there is a notice on the bulletin board that says interns needed. illinois residents preferred, office of u.s. senator. he calls the telephone number and the next thing, he's working in the office of senator paul douglas of illinois. he comes back dazzled. i saw bobby kennedy and then i saw teddy kennedy and then i saw jake javits and sherman cooper. he goes through all these names and i said, is there another opening for an intern? he said, i will find out. that was 300 miles from chicago and it was a novelty and i got

hired as an intern for douglas. i told some of your earlier douglas was in the marine corps in combat in okinawa and got his left arm all shot up just like bob bill. he used to call it his paperweight and insisted on signing every letter that an intern set at the table at 5:00 p.m. and pulled the letters. that was my introduction to politics. until that point, i did not know what i was going to do but all of a sudden, i decided i want to do this. i want to be part of this. i ended up working on his senate campaign. i knew nothing about campaigns. he hired me for $1000 for whole summer and i traveled the whole state and i was just hooked. i had been accepted to georgetown law and lost all interest in law school. i wanted to be in politics but i went to law school. it turned out pretty well. i ended up running for office three times and losing all three. fourth time, i won, elected to

the house of representatives, 14 years there and now my 30th year in the senate. that is the story in a nutshell. there's a lot more chapters to it. what am i going to do next? i wanted to be able to walk out the front door of the senate rather than be carried out the back and it reaches a point where you got to decide that is the right thing for you and i made that decision. i wanted to teach in some capacity. trying to cash in on public service. but i'm glad i took that route. >> thank you all for your service. i am going to start by just talking about what we have all witnessed for the last 15 months or so and it started with the cabinet appointees and it has gone on with, you know, i was sitting in the denver airport today and i made a list. no particular order, by the way, with ice and venezuela and selling crypto from the capital and iran and the shooting of u.s. citizens and tearing down

the east wing of the white house , the list goes on and on and on and on and on. if robert byrd was alive, you all know this. if he was still alive, he would be going crazy because he always fought with the administration regardless of if it was a democrat or republican and so the question is do you think this is just going to continue? first of all, do you agree with me at there is a lot being done particularly with the folks on the other side because it has to be done in a bipartisan way? do you think it will continue or do you think there will be a breaking point and if you do, what do you think that breaking point might be? >> >> you know before there is a breaking point. i do think people are very upset and i think it's about the issue of affordability.

you know, if you look at all the polls, the polls say about process. they don't care about the legality of what the president is doing or not doing but they do care about the fact that he promised he was going to address the cost of living and he has not done that. and i am not sure how we get our republican colleagues to push back on some of the things that have happened because i have had a number of conversations behind closed doors which i'm sure everybody here and say, where our colleagues have said we agree with you. we don't like what is happening, but they are unwilling to say anything publicly, to speak out, to call the president on it. and as you say, it started with the nominees to the cabinet and

it's very different than the first trump term was. there were concerns that i heard from constituents, concerns i had about the first trump administration but this one is totally different because there is no one around this president who seems to be able to prevent him from taking certain actions, who is able to say, as bill barr was, for example, when he was the attorney general that the president couldn't do certain things, as we saw from the secretaries of defense, whether it was mattis or esper who said we cannot. is not allowed under the law and that is a violation of what we expect the military to do. but this is a real different situation where there is nobody who is standing up except in the

courts and the courts, the courts have been willing to put a halt on some of the policies that violate the law. >> i mean, thank goodness for those judges. i knew you would know the number. quite rightly, and take great pride in those judges that are holding the line in a lot of places but look, this is how i see it. power abhors a vacuum and right now, because the way congress, the house, and the senate are being run, i mean, in my mind, they are really not doing their jobs. so there is a power vacuum and trump is sucking up all that power and this is not something -- we are seeing the worst of it in the trump administration right now. what i mean by that is do you see the senate doing the kind of

oversight that we should be doing? do you see the senate really passing the laws that need to be passed to help address the affordability crisis that americans are experiencing? you do not see any of that. do you see the senate doing anything when you have armed and mass agents groping through my town, my hometown of minneapolis and terrorizing people and holding people with no reason including u.s. citizens, breaking down the doors of the homes of u.s. citizens? you don't see congress really doing anything about that. so the power all continues to go to the executive and this has been going on for quite a while, right? it's much worse now but that i think is the big challenge we face because the article one branch of government doesn't function, then the power is going to go somewhere. if we do not use our power, the power will go somewhere and what we are seeing is it's going towards donald trump.

>> i think that's not an answerable question today. that is a question about the life of our democracy and what is going to happen next and i think that is going to depend on what the american people do. this may not make me popular here, but the reality is, i mean, when you list -- $4 billion in crypto, the fact that he's treating red states and blue states differently from one another, that has ever happened certainly in our lifetimes. i don't think it has happened in american history. the corruption that is completely endemic to the administration, the kleptocracy he represents in the coal of personality that i'm sorry to say the senate republicans have kind of adopted, i don't think any of that goes away unless we can figure out how to beat him and i blaine trump for a lot of things, but getting elected is

not one of the things i blame him for. he was elected once by the american people. the american people took for years off and then they sent him back again because the democratic party, which is the opposition party, could not -- did not have a compelling vision about what the future of the country was going to look like, didn't have a compelling vision about how we were going to solve the affordability crisis, and if you live in a democracy, going back to the history of humanity, what you know is when people lose a sense of opportunity for themselves and their families, when they feel like no matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead, trump has shown up and said i alone can fix it. you don't need a democracy or rule of law. i am probably corrupt in the face of a system that is not delivering for the american people and i think it is incumbent on us to figure out how to build quickly, to build

an american majority that cannot just win the presidency but can win the senate back as well and that has nothing to do with trump. that has to do with us. >> we will get to that in a minute. parks i want to follow up for a moment. i am trying to remember the dates and i think i got this right. it was 1942 when franklin delano roosevelt was elected to a second term. he was unhappy with the united states supreme court and that approved his new deal legislation in its entirety and he decided to do something about it. he came back from a popular reelection so he went to congress and said i want to pack the court with additional justices who will rule our way. the reaction from congress was virtually universal. on both sides of the aisle, democrats and republicans said, no, mr. president, you cannot change the supreme court. we will not tolerate it. and they stopped it and he ended up -- a few of them started loading his way. a switch in time saves nine.

that's the lesson of the day so think about three weeks ago, three weeks ago, a member of the president's cabinet who had basically told the senate judiciary committee and the house judiciary committee to go straight to hell for a full year and refused to appear before the committee for oversight finally relented and said i will do the senate on tuesday in the house on wednesday and that will be the end of this stuff showing up in front of congress. her name was kristi noem and at the end of two days, she was no longer the secretary of homeland services. the point i am getting to you is even though we were in the minority when we started asking questions and she started answering questions under oath, it started unfolding what she had done, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on self promotion and advertising plus some miserable decision on her part to call people who protested in minneapolis and the people protesting in chicago domestic terrorists and this

administration is incapable of saying two words and she could not say when that day. i'm sorry. she could not bring it to herself to say i'm sorry we called your daughter a domestic terrorist. she was gone in 48 hours. it gave me just a little bit of hope. you don't get much from the republican side but the american people, when they get a look at somebody, can bring it out they brought her down. >> that is one of the real problems because right now, getting, as you pointed out, getting members of the administration to come before committees to do hearings -- in the foreign relations committee, we have not had one hearing on the iran war because the majority will not do a hearing. and getting information so that people can see what is going on has been a huge issue. >> so as long as you are warmed up, there is a lady by the name of pam bondi that basically stood in front of congress two or three weeks ago and said i am not answering your questions. i'm answering mine. and somebody, and i would love

to get your opinion, it appears to me a totally weaponized the department of justice. >> no question about it. i have never seen anything like that. she came in with the hit list of every single one of us. i can mayor mike rawlings on the democratic side here whenever they ask the tough question, she had a personal hit from his or her previous campaigns. she is a tough cookie and she's got a president who backs her up and she's completely beholden to him at this point. that's one of her tools that she's using with kash patel. >> the list goes on and on. you take the secretary of war, defense, whatever you want to call it today, hegseth. the chairman of the joint chief, general caine said don't go into iran. we don't have the munitions and we don't have our allies but that did not seem to stop him.

over a person who actually knew the job. let's talk about something you guys brought up. the waste, fraud, and abuse. you know, a year ago, we were talking about doge or maybe it was winding down by then, and they were talking about getting rid of people because they were not doing their job and getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse, now we hear about the secretary of war buying a steinway piano and steak and crab. we hear about $20 billion going to argentina. we hear about warehouses that are being bought for five times as much as they were sold for two years ago for the purpose of making prison camps out of them. republicans used to be conservative. it would seem to me that this is something that would get them fired up. any response? any response when they see this? i mean, look, farmers just got a

check because of the tariffs and we all know the constitution says tears need to go by congress that the president said no and he had members of congress he could not do it. what is the mood out there? because we are spending money like crazy. $2 billion a day in iran. i mean, money is going out the door, huge. what are the republicans thinking about this and what about that funding bill for the iran war? do you want to talk about that? >> well, i think there are real reservations about the idea that the president is going to send us -- and request for 200 billion dollars to fund the war. yes, with the b. it will be interesting to see how they respond when we actually get into a hearing. you know, the disappointing thing is that i think we are not

going to see a different response until we get to the elections and i think when we get to the elections and the midterms, if we take back the house, that will give our colleagues because to think about maybe raising some concerns because they are going to hear directly from the american people. you know, at the start of this administration, my view was that there were three ways to slow down president trump's policies. one was if the stock market and the economy went south, and we are seeing that, sadly, in a very hard way for so many americans and the cost of gasoline and energy, because of the iran war, really contributing to that. the other was if some of our republican colleagues stood up and said we cannot support these policies.

we have not really seen that in any meaningful way except on the appropriations process and i will say we are both on the appropriations committee. there was really good bipartisan support for a budget that rejected most of donald trump's cuts to the budget. the third way of course is the midterm elections. if we take back the house and have significant gains and i think the cook report now has said this may be a 50-50 chance of taking back the senate, too. so that is what people are going to listen to when they see that there is real accountability among the public for the actions people are taking in washington. >> so these guys have a vote at 7:45 and we got started late but i think it's really important that if folks have questions,

start lining up at the microphone because we will do that right now. one last question. we are in a partial government shutdown right now. tsa agent asked me if i still had any clout and i told him, of course not. i have none. what do you guys think is going to occur here on the shutdown? >> so super interesting to me. this weekend, that, you know, democrats have been saying for weeks, let's open up everything in homeland security except for ice immigration enforcement because we have got to put some guardrails are nice, and this weekend, the republicans came forward and said, let's talk about that. let's figure out how to fund tsa and fema and postcard. >> after they voted against it 10 times. >> that is exactly right. they blocked it every time we tried to do it. that is exactly right in this weekend, it seemed they started

to say, let's talk about this. well, what happened is that the president said no and said we are not going to do that. he said come in fact, i am not even going to sign funding for paying for the salaries of these tsa agents and everybody else until you all pass this voter suppression bill called the save act. he did not called -- he did not say the voter suppression part. we are kind of in a jam again, aren't we? jean has done such a good job of trying to find that governing coalition in the senate, that place where we can agree, but this is kind of disheartening. maybe he will change his mind in a day or two or maybe the republicans will pass it anyway. because they certainly have the power to do that, but that is kind of where we are, but let's -- i mean, an addendum on what tina and my call and john have all said is that that is why the elections are so important and that is why making sure that

people are not impeded as they go to vote -- in new hampshire, our legislature passed a ration of the save act that went into effect for the last year's municipal elections and this year's municipal elections and there's a significant percentage of the people in the state who were denied the ability to vote at those elections because they were women who got married and had changed their name and did not have a birth certificate. there was one particularly egregious example which was a former executive councilwoman which in new hampshire is an elected position and he had served a republican who had served in office. he moved when he went to go vote in the work he thought he was registering in and they said, no, you are not here anymore because you moved. he had to go vote in a different location. come back with your proof of

address, which he brought back and they said, sorry. we purged you from the federal so now, you can only vote if you have a passport or birth certificate and he could not access either one of those before the polls closed so he was disenfranchised and that is what is going to happen if the save act gets passed. chris just to point out the obvious but ids are required now . >> in 26 states, ids are required. >> right. just ask a question. don't make any political comment. thank you. >> so i am just wondering. since the beginning of the second trump administration, we saw the removal of lots of military high command. are the reckless military actions we have seen in the past few months a fallout of that and are there any other repercussions of the leadership removals that you think have gone under noticed by americans

as a whole? >> i would say repercussion of that is donald trump has made a decision to iran with a tiny coterie of yes people around him. he did not consult seriously the agencies of government and he did not consult seriously the people that if you were planning something this massive that you would want to put in a room to fight it out, to argue it out. does it make sense for us to do this or that? he has this tiny group of folks, most of whom are not even from dod. the secretary of defense, being war, they have not changed it lawfully. that is what happens when you are living in a world where you are allowing yes people to govern the most important decisions that we make in war and peace. we have a president who says the only constraint on him is his own morality.

we can all be the judge of how constraint donald trump is. that's what i think we are facing. these monks. >> so bright. >> can you tell us where you are from? >> i'm from the bay in california and i feel like a lot of messaging has shifted to questions of affordability but lasting affordability requires a systemic reform that often goes against what a lot of top dollar donors necessarily want so how will democrats create change that lasts cast an election cycle while balancing these fundraising priorities? >> go ahead. >> no, i just talk. >> i will just say this. the people who are skeptical think the billionaires are in this government and there is a lot of truth to it, a lot of truth to it. i think the next generation of

democratic leadership and candidates have to come up with some exciting new ideas that really touched the heart and soul of the voters. how about the issue of caregivers? my son and his wife discover they are going to have a baby, the first call they made was to us in the second call made was to a daycare center and they wanted to get onto a list of a good day care center. caregivers are needed in that part of life for disabled people and certainly needed for the aging parents and grandparents and it's a reality, economic reality facing so many families. we have got to spark an interest in funding the type of things and making life easier to live for families across the board. >> i would just add, sorry, that you are also the answer to your own question and i don't mean that in a pandering way. it is true. you are going to have to batter down the doors of this place to

make the change you want to make in this country. the campaign we are running in colorado is asserting that colorado should be -- we are a state where people are spending 50%, 60% of their income in housing. i used to be the superintendent of denver public schools. i never met a teacher who did not live in denver and we used to say, this is so much better than san francisco because people who are teaching can actually, no offense to you, but i would certainly have never said that had i known you. we would say that but now, we are just like san francisco. we are just like portland. we are just like seattle. that is totally intolerable. we have teachers now in colorado. they are now -- john is in el paso county. a food bank keeps its lights on late one night a week for teachers to come to get food

from the food bank to feed their own family. and you think about -- i think about a place like chicago in the 1950's in wonder whether we would have ever imagined somebody teaching in the inner city of chicago or suburban chicago would have had to go get to a food bank to feed their own family and the answer is the economy we are living in today. we have to answer that and we have been saying colorado, no working person should have to spend more than 70% or 30% of the income and housing. this is going to be a real challenge to get there but those are the chemicals i think we should have. same thing with health care. this party should stand for universal health care. this shouldn't just be about are we getting the affordable care act premium support, which is fine but is not going to make insurance affordable for people your age in our country. whether or not the party is willing to make the choices that you wanted to make is going to

depend in part on whether you're going to show up no matter how disappointed, irritated, aggravated you are about the corruption that you are right. we should address it and we have to address it. and we have to address it. >> my question is similar to the previous one in that it is about affordability. senator bennet, you mentioned that much of trump's election could be attributed to democrat failure on taking on the affordability issue. as we approach the midterms, it seems from the outside looking in that there is not much of a consensus on how to take on the affordability issue in the democratic party beyond the consensus that it should be a priority. my question is -- what improvements have been made since last year's election? you mentioned health care. >> let me take a stab at that.

first i want to acknowledge it there was an interesting report and i think it came out a week ago that 18% of the political contributions made in the last election were made by billionaires. so just think about that for a minute. the impact of very very very wealthy people on our politics and you see it everywhere. the democratic party has to break up with billionaires. we have to really look at how the system is rigged to make sure the super wealthy in the country and keep doing better and better and everyone else is struggling. they are literally drowning because i cannot figure out a way to make their lives work with this economy. let's take one thing i see happening in my home state of minnesota and it has to do with housing. how is it going to work that people can buy a home when in

some parts of this country, big corporate entities are buying up houses faster than anyone can even buy them? they are paying cash for houses and turning them into rentals. that is unacceptable and we should be against that as the democratic party. i will tell you that congress passed a law and it should have been stronger but it was a really good start on saying no to corporate ownership of houses because that is crowding individuals out of being able to buy their own homes. and it is contributing to a lot of crappy rental houses owned by corporations. that is one example of the ways we need to have a proactive forward-looking plan about un-rigging be economy so it works for regular people and is not creating an environment where the wealthiest and the biggest corporations can benefit. let's do something about corporate ownership of housing. >> before we get to the next

question i want to say one thing -- who you vote for matters and who controls the senate and the house and the presidency matters. i don't want to use this excuse but when you are in the minority, you don't control the agenda. when you are the minority, if they don't want to hear your bill, your bill will not be heard. and it is incumbent upon the democrats to do things to keep the majority. this is the 16th anniversary of the signing of the affordable care act by obama. some of the things we accomplished in that bill took a heroic effort to reach it and had been dreamed of for years. we got it done and 30 million more americans had health insurance at the end of the day. >> i will tell you what -- one of the things we need to do is to deal with tariffs. every family in america is paying an average of $1700 more

a household. i can tell you that canadians are no longer coming to new hampshire to vacation. if you look at the numbers, this is the first year i think i probably certainly in my lifetime that we have had fewer americans coming to this country than leaving. when we have had fewer tourists coming to america than other countries around the world because people are worried about what it means to come to america. >> it will be easier when canada is the 51st stage. >> or greenland. but that is distressing. >> hello, i'm charlie from colorado. we work talking about tsa -- >> i thought you were going to ask for better representation. [laughter] >> you are ok, don't worry.

we were talking about tsa and the problem in the airports. i'm only 19 but it feels to me at the -- i'm just wondering -- is there any other avenues that we can look forward to to fix this? >> we need to demand of our elected officials that they need to work on issues that we care about. and that they do it in a bipartisan way. you know, i am a partisan. i'm a democrat and have been my whole political life. i care about the democratic party. but i also think i have a responsibility to represent the people of new hampshire and to do it in a way that addresses their concerns. in order to do that i have to work with my republican

colleagues. i think it is incumbent on me to figure out how to do that. i'm not going to agree with them a lot of the time but i try to find places where i can agree because that is in the best interest of my constituents. and that is what we ought to be demanding as the public. we need to demand -- i mean democracy works because people engage with it. i was at a one-room schoolhouse in new hampshire on friday. the longest continuously operating one room schoolhouse in the country. in 2020 two the voters in the town stopped funding the budget at the levels they needed to in order to continue to keep the kids in the community. the people in the community got together and said, we are not going to let this happen again. we are going to get engaged and go to school district meetings and town hall meetings and pass the budget. that is what we have to do in

order to make the democracy work. it doesn't just work on its own. we have to engage with it and we have to demand of our elected officials what our needs are and let them know that and let them know that this partisan divide is not working for america. >> my name is paul and i'm from western new york originally. i'm a graduate student at georgetown. my question is for all of the panel but senator bennet, you mentioned that part of the reason trump was reelected was the democrats did not address affordability. my sense is that part of the reason for that is because democrats -- the senate filibuster. i acknowledge the filibuster is helping out right now now that the democrats are in the

majority but i'm not sure i see them getting 60 votes in the senate in 2028. my question is -- using the filibuster -- do you think the filibuster has outlived its usefulness? >> who would like to go first? >> i think it has outlived its usefulness. i think it was not part of the original framework of our -- i think the founders of this country, we don't have to do everything they told us to do but i think the founders are sometimes invoked to support the filibuster. they believed there should be a vigorous debate but at the end of the day, majority should have to make a decision. otherwise the government would be enfeebled. that is what you see today in

part i think because of the constraint of the filibuster. be careful what you wish for because you're right. i remember some years ago when people used to worry the roe v. wade would be overturned if we lost a filibuster. guess what? roe v. wade was overturned by a senate that without the filibuster forced through three people that were such right-wing justices -- under the old rules they would never have been there. the ox will get gored either way. you can have an honest debate whether it is in the u.s. senate where a college campus where people don't behave as though they have a monopoly of wisdom. the wisdom of the democracy is what is supposed to come from

the debate in a free country and in a free society. and i think we are losing that at every single level of this democracy. and that is something that we really do need whether we have a filibuster or not. >> i think there are two big reasons while -- why we are seeing the changes. one is money good money in politics. when we passed citizens united and said corporations are people and you don't have to be responsible for who you are giving money to and the public doesn't need to know. the other is gerrymandering. we have districts that are gerrymandered so that people don't have to have that debate because they can get elected just with the base constituents. and that is a problem because if we can't -- this country was built on compromise. if we can't figure out how to

work together and compromise then we cannot get anything done. and that is what we are seeing too often in washington. >> i will add and i feel strongly but jean and michael are right. compromise is how you get things done. i think the filibuster and the abuse of the filibuster over many years has stymied compromise, has stymied debate. do you see debate on the floor of the united states senate? absolutely not. there is no debate because the rules of the filibuster and other procedures are such that you don't have to talk, you just have to block. the main tool used on the senate floor is blocking action and that is why people are so pissed off. the compromise jean is talking about doesn't happen. is it risky to get rid of the filibuster?

you bet. without the filibuster, would we passed the save act? maybe but maybe not because people would have to take responsibility for their boats and they would have to vote. and then there would be accountability, right? you cannot hide behind the filibuster. you voted for something i strongly disagree with and i will hold you accountable because of that. >> we have perfected the craft of not getting anything done in blaming the other side. when you are all in the u.s. senate i would wish for you to be in a place that that is not the reality of the place. because we cannot get people's business done under those terms. >> my name is ben and i'm from northern virginia. i've been in new hampshire for a couple years. it seems to me that president trump has changed the rules of politics, ignoring the role of government and i'm not sure i

see the democrat party changing to match that. and keep up. >> i hope not. >> or to combat it, i should say. i think we see evidence of that in losing elections we should be winning and striking on in the polls. >> weight. we have run almost every election since last year's midterm in the elections in new jersey and virginia. we just won in wolfeboro, new hampshire in a district donald trump carried by double digits because people have had it. >> so maybe the people of wolfeboro can give us a hint on how we can change to win. how do you think the democrat party should change its strategy to be competing and reverse losses and reach young people? >> we just had an election in

illinois. during the course when you talk about what money is doing to politics. a good demonstration of what happened. there were three major candidates from my state. one put together a treachery of $50 million for the democratic primary. he spent $50 million and the cryptocurrency people who i have no use for put in $10 million. he ran a distant second. same thing is going on in maryland right now. there is a fellow who was a former congressman. he is running for congress and spent $50 million. the point i'm getting to is what it takes to win an election as a candidate is to work hard enough to win. every once in a while there is a

message that comes, we voted against the money. >> i just have to say -- if we don't get this money thing figured out, i think it is huge. right now candidates don't have to meet with their constituents, they don't have town hall meetings. if they have money, they can buy the message they want for the people. they don't have to answer press questions. in montana they hand the press the questions and if they don't ask those questions, they don't get interviewed. if we don't fix this corporations are people crap then our democracy will him -- may not survive because of it. go ahead. >> hello. thank you for being here.

it is not like you don't have anything better to do. >> we actually don't. but thank you for pretending. >> if you served a little food, we would stay all night. >> i'm a public policy student here. i'm sure they would love to have you, senator durbin, if you wanted to teach. i -- you mentioned the power grabs by this administration particularly in the context of the dangers behind the executive were broad executive authority. how do you suggest given your experience and lifetime of service, what reforms should we be considering for the next person to hold the oval office to rein in executive overreach?

>> well, i i suggest they abide by the law. that is what is going on here. a lot of what this president is doing is not legal. i think there are several ways to address that. and they have to do with the electoral process and electing people who are responsive to voters. >> i would say that what we are learning as a result of trump's this democracy is not immune to really bad behavior. we are not immune to somebody who isn't committed, to say the least, to the rule of law or separation of powers or anything like that. and this will not hold up unless we are willing to stand up for it.

part of the problem we've had is that for a long time congress has not done its job. i'm not blaming congress for what trump is doing but it is the evolution that is happening. congress has broken down and obama says, let's do this and this. and then trump's first term says this in them biden says this. for a variety of reasons, this institution -- and i would add social media to the list of pernicious forces that we are grappling with. we have to make it work. and the american people need it to work. john mentioned earlier the deficit and the debt. we have 37 trillion dollars in debt and i would argue that your generation has actually gotten no benefit from that. none. you have not gotten one dollar of benefit from that 37 trillion dollars. and we need to fix that.

and you guys need to be a part of fixing that. probably not on anyone's list here tonight but it is an outrage that we are in the situation we are in and both parties have contributed to it. we need people to come here and crack heads together for the people in our jobs and say -- we need a bipartisan result because no party can fix the problems on their own. i would put that, not necessarily on the top of your agenda but on the list of a long agenda for your generation. demanding not just that this place work better but that we deliver results for you as we turn this over to you. and i just would say, you cannot give up. we cannot give up. and you in particular cannot give up because all of this is still in front of you. >> leo auerbach just gave me -- sorry, leo. we have time for one more

question. sorry about that for the folks that stood in line. these guys have a boat at -- have a vote at seven: 45. >> i'm going to call ted cruz to see if you will vote for me. just kidding. he won't. >> i'm a sophomore in the school of foreign service from florida. we have seen that there is condemnations for january 6 from both sides of the aisle. we have seen widespread calls for reform of the pardon because of the abuses by president trump and condemnations of the ways that president biden used it. there seems to be systemic problems because of polarization . do you think it is time for a constitutional convention to fix

some of these problems? >> no. >> no. >> i think it is unanimous. we kind of danced around this -- this is not just a republican conservative president. we talked about economic policy earlier. i remember ronald reagan came in and his economics were so bad. i would welcome ronald reagan back any day. what we are dealing with in this president is a narcissistic megalomaniac. we have never had anything like this in history. he is unique in his view of the world and how he executes the power we've given him as president. the stock market rallied today. why? because he started the day by saying, we are talking to the iranians and this will be over soon. zoom, up goes the stock market.

is there a conversation he never had any conversation? probably. that is what we've come to expect from the president of the united states. when it comes to corruption, they used to at least close the door when they handed money but now they announce it to the world. this is a unique situation because this is a unique individual. you would think the republicans, what is left of them, would have enough by now but they will have to you -- lose an election. >> lesson, we've talked about a lot of the challenges we face. but we have the ability to make change. to change this and make it better. don't get discouraged by the concerns we are expressing. democracy works when we make it work. and our goal is to make sure

that people can vote to make sure they are engaged and to make sure you know who you are voting for it. we all need to work on that. i tell you the story about the one room schoolhouse. it was only a couple of people that were the instigators there. and one person can make a difference. you all can make a difference. so don't get discouraged. you have to stay engaged because that is how we make change. >> yes, i totally agree and i think we not be afraid to make some systemic changes. why don't we have a national popular vote? the constitutional says we have an electoral college. i think the electoral college has outlived its usefulness in so many rays. that would be an example of a systemic change we should think about. when we talk about congressional elections were 84% of congressional elections the candidate wins by 10 points or more. we have a big problem.

there isn't enough competition in our elections. therefore we end up with highly polarized congress but i don't think really reflects the actual views of america. americans are not nearly as polarized as congress is. i would just conclude by saying that we should not be afraid to look at big systemic changes right now. i think in some ways trump is the problem but in some ways he is also the system of a bigger systemic challenge that we have to get after, all of us together. i'm optimistic. sometimes things have to get really shitty before they can get good again and i think that is where we are right now. >> i want to thank you all for coming. remember the power of the democracy is still with the people. you have it but you have to use it. a special thank you to my four friends up here today. i was thinking durban, it would

be great if you were an alumni from the college that i graduated from good but the truth is to have four great senators that spent their life in public service to be here speaking to you -- we are very thankful for that. >> thank you, all. [applause] >> now go and vote. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> good to see you. >> announcer: on tuesday, kiersten davies and lieutenant general paul stanton testify before congress on the defense department's security and information technology operations. watch the senate armed services subcommittee hearing live at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span three, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. announcer: you're watching

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